How to update a Joomla 1.5 site with Custom Properties to Joomla 1.7 (or J 2.5)

So you have a Joomla 1.5 website with Custom Properties and you want to upgrade to Joomla 1.7, but you are unsure about upgrading, fearing you could lose all your work. Well, it turned out that upgrading, with the right tools, is not that traumatic.

To upgrade or not to upgrade

Before deciding to upgrade one should make sure that the site can be upgraded to J17 in all its parts. Internationalization in J15 is mostly done with JoomFish, while J17 has a different (and partial) solution built into his core. Many extensions are not yet available for J17 or might not be backward compatible. So, a thoughtful analysis is paramount before starting.

How to

Foreword: backup, backup, backup. Before starting the upgrade process you should make a backup of your site and DB so that, in case the procedure fails, you'll be able to restore your site to a working condition.

So you have a Joomla 1.5 website with Custom Properties and you want to upgrade to Joomla 1.7, but you are unsure about upgrading, fearing you could lose all your work. Well, it turned out that upgrading, with the right tools, is not that traumatic.